A vent about Econ Bros

(1) "I personally dislike neoclassical econ's fetishization with mathematical models."

this is not what I am saying. I have no problem with using math. The question is if the math is being done just for the sake of math or is the math being done because it actually describes reality. THAT'S what matters.

Neoclassical economics uses math just for the sake of math. And that is the core of the problem. Not that math is involved.

(2) "I want to point out that the issue that you bring up here has been the biggest debate among all the economics departments in the past few decades."

This is not true. No actual economist actually disagrees with the fact that the axioms of neoclassical economics does not account for all of reality. The "debate" has been what to do with the fact that neoclassical economic theory does not capture all of economics. In which yes, neoclassical economics "won" in the sense that economic departments now will dishonestly represent the accuracy of neoclassical economics. It is dishonesty because they now know that it is inaccurate in material ways and they just choose to ignore this.

(3)  "I too wish Praxeology / Mises, and the classics (Mill, Marx, Smith, Ricardo, etc) were more often taught."

This is not what I am saying. I am not saying we should go backwards and teach economics ad hoc through a bunch of old writings. We already have better theories right now. We already have theories that better describe reality right now. Economic departments just need to stop dishonestly teaching economics. And if they do this, the number of econ bros will decline substantially 

I did say this was me venting and tilting at windmills. I am well aware

I would if they weren't so insufferable. That's the problem. If they weren't econ bros and could just be decent, I'd have no problems. But when they get into a dick measuring contest and don't even know what they are working with... 

(1) "Who are you hanging out with? " Are you asking for the names of the people I associate with? Are you asking for general descriptions of these people? How do you want me to answer this question?

(2) "And why are they so frequently discussing economics that this is a problem?" They don't. 

Before getting into my substantive response, I just wanted to say I very much appreciate your comment. It is not often that someone actually thinks about what they post on here or provide an actually meaningful comment. 

(1) "at least amongst professors (i.e the department itself), I've yet to find someone who will construe these theories as actually being fully applicable."

This is not being a devil's advocate. This supports what I say. This is saying that economists know that neoclassical economics is a special case of a more general theory. The entire point of my commentary about the conference with the economic and physics Nobel laureates is that economists generally know this, yet they choose to use neoclassical economics as if it is the general theory. Saying economists pretend that neoclassical economics is the theory of economics when it isn't makes my point.

(2) "The way it's been presented to me, is that teaching this theory is useful because it gives a framework that simultaneously introduces ppl to the different logics that can be at play even in the real world (dumb example: a single market clearing price) whilst also starting the develop the skills (such as the math you mentioned) to approach the more complex work that emerges past undergrad."

This would be reasonable if actual economic programs did this. They don't. Neoclassical economics gets taught as if it is actually the theory of economics and not just a special case of a more general theory. Now, I do fully agree with you that, especially at the undergraduate level, simplifications are made. Absolutely. Obviously in introductory economics classes they are not going to teach the entire theory from the most elementary to the most advanced parts. It starts simple but continues on to more advanced work. But it is still neoclassical economics. The simple, basic, elementary material that gets taught is neoclassical economics and the more advanced material is still neoclassical economics. The rigor in which you approach the material doesn't change what theory you are using. 

A good example of this comes from math. Calculus is the elementary version of analysis. They are the same math, just calculus is the "simple" math that gives you a framework that simultaneously introduces people to the different logic that can be at play even in the real world while also starting to develop skills to approach more complex work. Analysis is the more complex work that calculus builds up to. But it is fundamentally all the same math. Just analysis is more rigorous than calculus.

(3)   Also what you're describing feels like bragging and know-it-all undergrads... these days."

(i) As I stated in my original post, this isn't applicable to just undergraduates. My focus in the post was on undergrads because they most exemplify the problem.

(ii) Like I said in my original post, economics is far from the only field that has this issue. There is just something more uniquely harmful about econ bros in that they don't even know that they are not even wrong. 

As you should ;)

I think you are being sarcastic, but I genuinely can't tell given how many stupid things people have said in this thread so far.

I mean I guess I'll respond to you being too intellectually immature to actually engage with what's being talked about and resorting to lashing out instead.  

(1) I didn't work in corp dev out of undergrad.

(2) It is really sad to hear you'd be insecure about econ bros in such a situation. You sound like you could use some therapy.

(3) "you sound very low IQ."

Yes, you got me. It is very low IQ to accurately (i) identify how a ubiquitous theory does not accurately describe the world, (ii) how certain institutions in that field will pretend that the theory is an accurate way to describe the world, and (iii) that this dishonest representation of the theory is part of what creates a class of insufferable hardos who don't even know that they are not even wrong. Very low IQ move indeed. 

(4) "pick up an Econ book."

I have a feeling that I have worked my way through more econ books than the number of econ books that you know of. 

(5) "touch grass."

It is hard to touch grass in this weather, but I'll gladly do so when the weather unfucks itself

(1) "Neoclassical econ is the consensus theory today and there is a reason it is implemented by most governments and central banks."

Correct. And the reason does not have to do with neoclassical economics being the correct theory of the economy. It is actually quite interesting to go through the history of the development of economic theory since we have better economic theories that are actually able to explain how we got here with neoclassical economics.

What I am telling you is not just my critique. What I am telling you is what Nobel laureates economists, who won their Nobel for work foundational to neoclassical economics, say. These critiques are coming from the people who literally created the theory you are defending. What I am telling you is phenomena that many of the most important economists in the history of the world have published works on, and this goes back to people even like Alfred Marshall and Adam Smith.

(2) "I'm by far not at the level of understanding to be able to truly criticise say the FRB/US model, and it's certainly not perfect, just nothing beats it today." 

We do have models that beat it today. Some central banks are even moving to these better models. 

(3) "Most people realise that we are simply trying to make conjectures about reality using maths/metrics - All models are wrong but some are useful."

Thank you for agreeing with me. And what I am saying is that using neoclassical economics to build your models leads to not useful models. They are in very specific situations a decent representation of what actually is happening in the economy. We see this all the time with the most obvious examples of this being the Financial Crisis. The Treasury literally asked the Fed in ~2005 to model what a ~25% decline in housing would lead to. The Fed did their neoclassical-based analysis and told the Treasury that it would lead to a recession, but one that is fairly in line with previous recessions. So what ended up actually happening? It was the worst financial clusterfuck since the Great Depression due to housing falling by 27%.

How useful is that? Treasury quite literally asked what would happen if the cause of the worst financial clusterfuck of the generation were to happen and the answer was, it will just be a standard pullback. What you are referring to as the best we have today was only off by orders of magnitude. 

(4) "It's a phase most go through and realise their ridiculousness afterwards."

I do generally agree with this. But this is also how Nobel laureates in econ, econ department chairs, and such act. Because, to be very clear, they do. Now, as I already said above, this most definitely is something that declines the further you get into economics. There are less eco bro Phds proportionally speaking than there are undergrads, for example. But this is a thing at all levels.  I just use undergrads as the example because it is clearest with them. Graduate students, PHDs, professors, professional economists, they all do this too. And like I said in my post, this happens across a variety of different fields, not just economics. The problem IS NOT that econ bros exist. It is that they don't even know that they are not even wrong. 

(5) "Hopefully you too will realise at some point that reading Keen or the like doesn't make you superior to nobel laureates."

(i) I see. You can't actually engage with what I am talking about. You have to fall back to fallaciously appealing to authority. Unfortunately, what you are doing is an illogical argument. Nobel laureates say a thing therefore it must be correct? Besides the logic issue, people have literally won Nobels for discoveries that never actually happened. Take a look at Fermi. He won his Nobel for the discovery of transuranics when what he actually did was fission. Or if you don't like that, how about Fibiger's Nobel for Spiroptera carcinoma, a ringworm, being a cause of stomach cancer when that worm does no such thing.  

But even if I grant you that a Nobel laurate has to believe a thing in order for the thing to be true, I am literally telling you about critiques made by Nobel laureates in economics. In fact, not only am I telling you a critique made by Nobel laureates in economics, I am telling you about critiques made by people whose Nobel laureates were for work foundational to neoclassical economics. As in I am telling you critiques about a theory that are from the mouth of the actual people who created the theory. 

You talk about this having the potential to be an interesting discussion, yet you are hiding behind Nobel prizes that you don't even understand. Which is a shame because this could be a fruitful conversation.

(ii) Nothing I am saying has anything to do with Keen. I get you don't understand economics outside of neoclassical economics, but if you don't know something you should ask instead of throwing out random words that have nothing to do with reality. 

Depending on how specifically you mean "educated" I may agree with this although this has nothing to do with what I actually said

(1) "You should share the other theories besides neoclassical models that are more applicable to the real world - especially the ones that other countries are moving to, just for the site’s overall edification."

Absolutely. A better alternative theory to neoclassical economics is complexity economics. The nice thing about complexity economics is twofold. First, and this is very high-level and snarky, the assumptions are basically just that humans are real things that exist and evolution is real. The other is that it is able to address both equilibrium and non-equilibrium dynamics which is something neoclassical economics can't do since it is just an equilibrium theory. 

We see certain countries central banks using these such as Hungary's, South Africa's, and Canada's. 

(2) " Is the gist of all of this that because Econ bros ignore the broader socio-political economy at large and only focus on hyper specific conditions to make their models work - it’s asinine for them to be so high and mighty about telling the rest of us of how the world works? Seems like the premise is - you can do all the fancy math you want, which is certainly mathematically sound - but what good is that math if all of the variable assumptions are trash to begin with? You get a very complex, but inherently wrong, answer…"

(i) For starters, yes. The theory does ignore the broader socio-political economy at large and focuses on hyper specific conditions to make their model work. But it is even worse than this. Even if we stick with "just" economic considerations (which is a nonsensical statement since economics is not independent of social and political realities), the theory can only make good predictions in a far narrower set of circumstances than the theory claims to be able to.  Neoclassical economics is an equilibrium theory. We know the real economy is rarely in actual equilibrium. Even if we grant the neoclassical economics worldview, it still gives you incorrect predictions for a massive number of things it claims to be able to predict.

(ii) Absolutely right. Neoclassical economics is, by and large, doing math for the sake of math regardless of how well it describes the real world we live in.

The cause of this is the assumptions the theory uses. And this makes a lot of sense. We can look at the development of neoclassical economics.  Neoclassical economics is able to give us some answer to certain questions. This is a huge improvement to what came before. This was valuable for a time, just like how in physics, old quantum theory was useful for a time even though it does not accurately describe the world we live in. But we have developed the technologies and theories that allow us to explore more economics than what neoclassical economics is able to address just like how QFT is a more accurate quantum mechanical theory than old quantum theory is.  

However, as can be explained by complexity economics, there is a lock-in effect at play. Those first neoclassical economic theorists largely knew that what they were doing was the study of special cases. They mainly knew their work was not generally applicable. However, as time progressed and more and more people were taught neoclassical economics, this understanding faded. And this makes sense. When you are in an econ 101 class, you are not going to prove every statement about the economy. Even in more advanced coursework, even in graduate school, you are not going to prove every element of the economics you are doing. It is not practical. You'd need like a decade to get through all the material if you do this. Unfortunately, a consequence of this is that the reality that neoclassical economics is a special case of a more general theory gets lost. So generations into the future, people learning economics don't even know that what they are doing is applying a special case generally. 

There is a reason why at my favorite econ conference that was ever put together, Murray Gell-Mann, Phil Anderson, and other physicists were completely perplexed by neoclassical economics that people like Ken Arrow and Tom Sargent were telling them about. Not because they didn't understand the math. Physicists, especially at that level, are just as capable at doing math as the economists. It was because physicists are trained to do theory that tries to actually explain the real world. These economists were getting frustrated because when these Nobel laureate physicists asked and asked and asked "why do you believe this assumption," the Nobel laureate economists said different versions of "oh we know this isn't real. It is just what the theory requires us to assume so we can do the math" They weren't assumptions because the difference between the assumption and reality were immaterial. It wasn't because this was a special case of a more general theory. It was because internal consistency required this in order to be able to do the math of neoclassical economics.   And this left the physicists aghast at what was considered standard economic theory